Amalfi

5/7/08 – 8:30pm

Wow! What a day. We are just in from our drive up the Amalfi coast. I warned Adrienne what this tour entailed but she said it was fine (I think only because I sounded so excited about it). It was not fine for her. It was fantastic for me.

We pulled in Naples at around 7:00am and our tour left at 7:30am. We had a fantastic tour guide and driver both of whom would be put to the test by the end of our trip. We drove to Sorrento along the high, winding road and Adrienne was OK, not terribly happy but OK. We stopped in Sorrento to shop and found it to be a charming little town with great shopping. Lynn and Rob from our dinner table were with us on this trip and it was great sharing it with them. (You might notice that some of the pictures for this city are of a much better quality than usual, that is because I downloaded all of Rob’s pictures from his fancy, fancy camera.) We continued down the coast to our lunch stop at the Grand Hotel Triton. This hotel and restaurant started right at the road and went down about 12 stories down the hillside. Straight down the hillside. It was stunning! Adrienne made it down the stairs and our table was on a terrace away from the wall so she was fine.

After lunch we continued down the coast toward Amalfi where we stopped again for picture taking and shopping. It was just as crowded now as it was when I was here in 2003 but he had a great time anyway. I bought a dark chocolate gelato with our last two euros and it was yummy. Back on the bus we started down the coast. I will try to remember to link here to Lyle’s assessment of the drive down this coast. It is insane. It is just barely one lane wide and includes very tight blind curves hugging the cliff going straight down to the sea. Occasionally there are, what amount to, crossing guards using walkie talkies to stop traffic when a city bus is going to be coming through. This was especially important to us since it would be next to impossible for two busses to pass each other on one of the curves of this road. Keeping that in mind, shortly after we left Amalfi we came nose to nose with an armored military vehicle as big as a bus towing a trailer on one of these curves. Our quick tour guide quipped “you guys don’t have anything planned for tonight do you?” It took more than a half hour and some major reverse driving down this twisty, winding road. Adrienne was beyond not happy at this point. Adrienne was in tears. Adrienne was contemplating getting off of the bus. If “off the bus” were not scarier than “on the bus” at this point I think she might have done it. But she stuck it out and we made it through. This, of course, made us very late getting back to the boat but not as late as others. When we were boarding the captain was announcing to everyone already on board that they were still waiting for about 450 passengers to return.

I hope you can tell from the pictures how amazing this tour was. I enjoyed it so much. We even drove right past the villa where Lyle and I stayed in Cetera with our friends back in 2003. I was able to show others where it was and promised to send them information on renting it.

We are all packed up and we said goodbye to all of our tablemates at this, our last dinner. We are very sad to be done, but I can’t wait to see my baby again. And my husband. It will be nice to see him too, but mostly my Jackson.